Impacts of Climate Change on the Fitness and Survival of Marine Organisms

Dear Colleagues,

Drastic increases in CO₂ emissions over the last century have caused substantial changes to the Earth’s systems, with unprecedented climate change predicted for the coming decades. As the global CO₂ concentration surges, the rapid rate of warming and acidification of our oceans and increased occurrence of extreme weather events will increasingly challenge the survival of marine organisms.  

How climate change impacts the fitness and survival of marine organisms has captured scientific attention worldwide. Although many studies demonstrated the detrimental effects of climate change on marine organisms, growing evidence reveals limited or even positive effects, suggesting that some marine organisms may be able to adapt to climate change. More research is required to understand what drives the success or failure of organismal responses.

This Special Issue aims to elucidate how climate change affects the fitness and survival of marine organisms. Evidence can be based on laboratory or field data. We welcome original papers addressing research themes including, but not limited to, the following:

1. Impacts of climate change (e.g., hypoxia, ocean acidification, and ocean warming) and extreme weather (e.g., heatwaves and rainstorms) on marine organisms from the molecular to population levels;
2. Adaptive mechanisms allowing marine organisms to adjust to climate change;
3. Current and future modifications to the structure and function of marine communities or ecosystems;
4. Management solutions to assist the adaptation of marine organisms to the changing conditions; and
5. Other factors that may modulate the effects of climate change on marine organisms (e.g., eutrophication, marine pollution, etc.)

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Oceans is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1000 CHF (Swiss Francs). For published papers in this Special Issue, the APC will be fully subsidized by MDPI. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.